


Spectral

by rispacooper



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-12
Updated: 2011-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A light angst fest. In color.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spectral

Into his own home like a thief.

In the night, unfamiliar halls are treacherous, dead ends of black, closed doors that waste time.

He’s too late. He can feel the panic of too-slow movements, tries to think past the heavy tolling of the clock, of his heart. He’s home too late, sneaking in again to silent rooms, _cold_ and silent, Death itself.

He pushes forward, clumsy, frightened, and stumbles at the flash of light from outside, streetlights, the moon, lightening, blazing through glass dripping red.

Ghastly, ghostly red, pouring down over the black, spreading over the shapes in his bed, shapes that don’t move no matter how he much stumbles.

It’s here, because he is here. He brought it with him, sneaking in like a thief in the night. A killer, here because of him.

His stomach can’t even turn, he’s falling, hearing the clock ahead telling him he’s too late, time is up. Theirs. He’s on his knees, heaving at the flickering light that bleeds onto him.

It’s all over him, his pants splashed with it, his hands when he lifts them, trying to block the sheets of red.

His hands have been touched by Death, _are_ Death. He vomits, tries to, but there’s nothing, only the flood of color, wet and sticky on his face.

When he lifts his head, sees the smiling, hideous mask, the mirror left to mock him, it’s smiling. He knows that smile. Red Death, he invited it here, to this place, his family.

Beyond it, in the black depths he can’t reach, can’t reach with his dripping fingers and wet palms, he can see them, will see them, if he can tear away the shadows, but his fingers stick, catch, and then there’s only the color.

“Red.”

Jane is up and leaning forward at the sound of his own voice. His stomach is twisting, pushing up, his breath harsh and dry.

There’s cold, somewhere. The air perhaps; it seems darker, like night. His skin is wet, he feels it under his suit. His jacket is still on, tight around his shoulders.

The couch is warm beneath him, lumpy and familiar, but Jane doesn’t look, leaves his mouth open, just breathing.

He’s at the office. The knowledge is not surprising, though there’s only a small measure of comfort in it. He takes his hands off his knees, drags them through his hair. After that he doesn’t give a damn where they are as long as he doesn’t have to see them when he opens his eyes.

Beyond his knees is the floor, his shoes, all barely visible with the lights off. Moonlight is pressing through the unshaded windows—energy saving California—and he can hear the patter of rain. He imagines tracks down the glass, sucks in more air.

There is, for a long moment, no other noise, and for that Jane raises his head, follows what he knows had been someone else’s regular, even breathing.

He sees Cho at his desk. Between the moon and the blue shine of so many screensavers, the room is tinged purple, shifting from near-black to violet and back again.

He’s too wet, too raw to speak yet, though he’s already collecting evidence.

Cho had left hours ago, slipped out somewhere after the lawyers had stepped in and refused to let Jane interrogate their suspect, get a confession. Sometime after Jane’s presence had let a killer go free for at least one more day. The rest had left on their own after that, one by one, glancing at his supine form on the couch, not without resentment, yet not with what they might have had either.

Cho’s computer switches to sleep mode as Jane meets his stare. He’s not in a suit, but he’s not casual. Cho most likely does not do casual, not in the way say, Rigsby, would. He wouldn’t need to; the suit is not part of an act, or a façade.

The night air touches the sweat along his back and Jane shivers. Cho looks away, then gets to his feet. Jane watches him disappear then looks at the time.

Eleven pm. Late. Late to be working, unless you were obsessed with fame, late, unless you were looking for anything to dig into in order to re-arrest and re-interrogate their suspect. Lisbon will no doubt spend the night forcing herself to watch TV, to relax, but she’ll come in tomorrow full of new ideas nonetheless.

Unexpectedly exhausted at the thought, Jane runs a hand through his hair again, wanting to shudder to find it wet. He drops it, blinks to find a cup before his face.

Water. A childhood cure for nightmares.

Jane swallows mouthfuls, lets the chill reach his stomach before he hands the cup back to Cho, who sets it aside.

The other man isn’t _quite_ frowning. His skin is smooth and purple, gentle shadows of indigo beneath his eyes.

“Come on.” He’s to the point and for that Jane could almost smile. There is no mask with Cho, only what others assume is a mask.

His legs are tremulous when he stands, but Cho only steps back to watch him, turning when Jane is on his feet. His coat is over his arm, files beneath that. It’s also not surprising that he can weave through the darkened space without tripping; he has worked late before, expects dead ends, frustrations, failures.

Usually however, they are the fault of the criminal.

“I’m done for the night,” Cho adds unnecessarily as they pass under the orange nighttime lights in the hallway. He’s tired, as Jane is, and moving slowly, though Jane isn’t selfless enough to tell him he can take himself home.

It’s late, Jane acknowledges to himself with a last glance at the office, the high, bright windows still dripping with rain. Too late for him to be out, though it have been nothing years ago. Nothing to be this tired for reasons that were extremely foolish in retrospect. Nothing to creep back into his home, a thief in the night.

The chime of the elevator recalls his attention to the present. Cho’s hand rests at his back for a moment, then leaves. It’s careful, so much that Jane can only wonder at what Cho must see. He doesn’t need to wonder what he heard.

There’s no music inside the elevator, only soft, yellow lighting and shiny metal panels full of buttons. He hits the one for the ground floor before Cho can, then settles in next to him to wait.

Only his hair is still wet, damp along his forehead, his neck. The air in the small car is warm, they both smell of sweat, like a long day. Cho also smells clean, free of cologne, or any of the usual products people use to disguise their fear of being seen as dirty, human.

That’s not entirely true, Jane amends after a small pause. He can smell deodorant, faint.

Jane sticks his hands in his pockets, catches sight of himself in the panel above the floor buttons, above the red emergency switch. He turns to Cho, still not speaking.

The files under his arm are because of Jane, but he has chosen, for the moment, not to reproach him. Perhaps the dream has put him off. But then, the fact remains that he hadn’t chosen to wake Jane either.

He knows what that means, but he can’t speak of it in the sunshine yellow of the elevator, or in the echoing chill of the empty parking lot.

He does stop, just outside, where the cement changes to gravel beneath their feet. Cho does as well, his face dark before he arches an eyebrow, his manner like Lisbon, expecting frustration perhaps, or failure, and bitterly amused in the face of it.

Jane likes Cho, he honestly does. There’s a shudder in him at the thought, weakening, a sensation he’s almost forgotten. He likes Cho, despite and because of the fact that Cho has made no secret that the moment Jane ceases to be a help, the moment he interferes, Cho will personally toss him from the building, from law enforcement itself.

A moment comes and goes. Then Cho is heading toward his car and Jane is walking after him. If what he said in his dream is responsible for this, then he ought to speak again, now, banish it like waking sometimes momentarily banishes Red John.

But when the SUV doors open they are both flooded with white, the interior lights blinding in the dimly-lit lot. Cho’s skin looks bleached, washed out, the shadows beneath his eyes no longer gentle. That is time invested in this case, hours gone, and still they are running out of time.

He’s too slow as he climbs into the passenger side, the seat warm, his limbs heavy. Then the doors are closed, the engine is on, and the lights are slow to fade.

The stare is intermittent, but intense, and before the dark returns, Jane is exposed.

“So you were looking through the Martinez casework again and you didn’t find anything.” Jane considers asking, but he knows it’s a fact before he speaks.

Cho pulls out into the streets, which are mostly empty. They aren’t near any bars and it’s nearly midnight on a weeknight. Nearly midnight, or perhaps even later than he thinks.

“I thought we might re-interview the neighbors…” Cho changes lanes, drives through a puddle, and though the water doesn’t reach his window, Jane leans away.

“Waste of time,” Jane declares, hearing himself, his arrogant tone, but it’s too late to change. Cho’s hands close tight on the steering wheel, then relax.

They hit another puddle and this time he flinches at dirty water pouring over thin planes of glass. There is no chance it was missed. Cho breathes out, then decides not to wait for an explanation.

“Why?” he demands, flat-voiced. “Why a waste of time?” As though the case is all that’s on his mind, Cho doesn’t look over, and steers easily around the next puddle, away from the curb.

This time Jane does smile. In the dark where it can’t been seen or understood, with Cho speaking and irritated with him, he allows the smile to slip onto his face. He thinks about injecting it into his voice, but untangles it from his usual confidence before he explains.

“Because if you question them any more, their statement about the time they heard the thumps and scream will fall apart. They were having sex, and neither wanted to admit to the police just how much time it actually took.” He wishes it were amusing. “They both exaggerated.”

“So their statement is a lie.” It’s Cho’s turn to ask without asking. Jane just looks him over, slowly. Cho’s more tired than he appears, angrier, more wound up. It’s there in his shoulders, his posture. He’s furious, stuck, and that’s Jane’s fault as well.

“An exaggeration,” he corrects, “I told Lisbon.” His voice is getting soft, thick, coaxing. He wouldn’t hypnotize Cho, not for this, though he could. His own mind is getting cloudy, warm here next to Cho, with the rain outside and the windshield wipers keeping time for them.

He glances at the clock—eleven-thirty—glances outside, doesn’t see rows of houses.

The area is residential, though more urban in appearance. They pass a strip mall, a convenience store where Cho must get his late night coffees.

There isn’t any other traffic, but the car hums to a stop, and Cho flicks off the wipers, no, changes them to a lower setting. Without the even back and forth wash of sound, Jane realizes that he’s gone quiet, that he’s stopped without explaining how their suspect was still guilty.

Maybe Cho knows he’ll get the answer eventually, or that Jane is simply is in no mood to talk murder. That he should be, that it’s why he’s there, disrupting their team, doesn’t seem to matter. Maybe Cho isn’t in the mood to talk murder either.

This is not Jane’s part of town. It must be Cho’s.

That’s where Jane keeps his eyes until the red, sparkling blood trails change to vivid green.

He’s frowning, a thoughtful frown, though his mind isn’t much for thinking now. In green, Cho makes him think of elves, or little people. Things his people profess to believe in, and fear.

Magic that isn’t real; Jane is proof of that. There’s a price for pretending otherwise.

“I can tell you why she’s guilty,” Jane remarks instead of commenting on their direction.

“Tomorrow.” Cho does not argue, though Jane alters his earlier assessment. There is no mask for Kimball Cho, but there are different sides of him, flickering into view like the screens in a shadow play, dependent on the lamp blazing behind them, and how carefully his audience watches him.

Jane takes his gaze away, sees himself for a moment in the side-view mirror, handsome, confident, false and far too tired. He shifts to look around them as they pull into an apartment complex, find parking in the rear.

It’s a small complex, apartments where people still know each other, where there’s community. That would be important; Cho takes families seriously, as seriously as they should be taken.

It’s a mistake for him to be bringing Jane here, but the time has passed for Jane to comment, and Cho is being as tight-lipped as ever.

“The couch isn’t comfortable,” he says at last, the motor off, keys out. That he’s spent nights on it _is_ a bit surprising. Jane wants to know why, and will find out, but not now. He only nods, moves when Cho does.

His reflection swings by as he closes the passenger door, and he reaches out, wiping away the raindrops, the smile he had ready, just in case.

There’s another hidden shudder for the moisture dripping between his fingers, into his palms. A mistake, but he watches Cho’s back as he walks.

He heads toward stairs that curl around the outside of the building.

Jane made Cho this tired, but there’s no break in his even steps, counting up, or down, toward something, forward. He’s quiet, considerate to his neighbors, but not furtive, and he’s taking his time. Probably nervous, or thinking Jane is. He might be; these are trivial thoughts, distractions for an exhausted, sick mind.

His body is still trembling, though the remnants of the dream are mostly gone. He’s warm and chilled at once.

Cho stops at his door, unlocks it, gestures for Jane to go ahead of him, though no lights are on inside.

None are necessary, which he sees as he walks in. Near the ceiling, wide, tinted windows open up to the sky, above the street, above the world. They let in streetlights, lightening, even moonlight filtered through rainclouds; they bathe the room in blue.

Pure, radiant, ethereal blue.

Jane puts up a hand as his eyes adjust, knows he is being mesmerized in return but doesn’t speak, or move, captivated by the steady beat in his ears, his sound of his breath, the glint of tears along his fingers.

He’s so heavy, so tired, his surprise making him weaker.

On his knees, he stares at blue streaks trickling down the glass, at the light shining through. He hears Cho close the door behind him.

“You shouldn’t have brought me here.” The admission is harsh in the dry throat. Cold. The carpet is warm beneath him. He drops his head, stares at his suit, which he knows is clean, smells his sweat. He has had a long day, and still another killer is free.

Cho moves through the black around them, touching him again, for the second time that night, in less than an hour. He’s alarmed, worried, to find Jane on his floor.

The worry makes Jane swallow. His heartbeat is in his ears, too loud, too late. It counts down like the chime of an ancient clock, somewhere. Cho’s bedroom perhaps, for now he can only guess. It’s an old-fashioned sound, and it echoes, nearly drowning out Cho’s words.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Cho’s joke is wry, startling. His smile will be soft.

Jane turns to look at him, at Cho who is every color but red, and wonders if he can, and what Cho will think of him when he does.


End file.
